Saint Charles and
Morning Prayer

The period of thanksgiving (after Mass in the morning) Father Charles invariably spent between the choir sacristy and the flight of stone steps leading to the organ-loft. That it was long I know, that it was fervent we need I think have no doubt. Why he chose those two places I have mentioned may be for two reasons.

First, the unlikelihood of being disturbed there; and secondly because they were both cold and uncomfortable - extremely so in the Winter, since they were devoid of any means whatsover of heating. If ordinarily he was on fire with the love of God, and there was every indication that this was his normal state, his heart must have been a veritable furnace after Mass. Nothing else can account for the fact that even on the coldest days of Winter he would throw open the window and remain long in front of it bareheaded and without protection of the mantle worn by us outside of the Summertime. I remember going to him for some reason or other on a few occasions during his thanksgiving. Once or twice he was sitting on a faldstool opposite the open window through which blew an icy breeze from the snow covered fields and hills around. The other occasions, with face buried in his hands, he leaned on the window-sill, immovable.

Whenever possible night or day he paid visits to the Blessed Sacrament. Of what passed between him and The Master in those heart to heart talks we may and judge from the, fervour of his life only, since during them he made himself as invisible to human eye as his ingenuity could devise. His favourite place in the daytime was the organ loft, which is reached without leaving the monastery or going through the Church, where a crowd was always sure to gather round him. He was undisturbed in the organ loft and reckoned he was also unobserved.

Recollections of Fr. Eugene Nevin C.P.

Contents
Saint Charles
and

A Smile
Fr. Salvian
Soldier

Music
Our Lady
'Vision'

Nature
Passion
of Jesus

Prayer
Service

Entering
Choir

Evening
Prayer

Mass

Morning
Prayer

His 'cell'
Healings
Hell